Guess what % of plastics have been #recycled? No prizes :(
@infobeautiful genuine question: what about products made out of (already) recycled plastic? I assume the main issue would be incentivising companies to keep producing plastic?
@infobeautiful 6% according to that 8yr old graphic. Implies 6% of 6% is recycled twice - which is too small to appear on the chart.
"How much recycled X is recycled again?" Is a game you can play with any recycled product or commodity and is about as pointless as complaining about the energy sources used to power cars & trains ("it still uses fossil fuels" - which is seriously missing the point)
@Winwaed @infobeautiful probably less that 6% of recycles plastic is recycled because in many cases recycled palstic is mixed or in a form that cannot be recycled. Lots of mixed recycled plastic becomes palstic sheet for construction, panels and benches; PET (bottles) becomes polyester for clothing. Those are likely to be used for longer but not recycled.
@philbarker @Winwaed @infobeautiful
Indeed. It's called downcycling.
But it's far worse, because the vast majority of the 6% which goes to recycling is either discarded or incinerated.

@infobeautiful

Is the recycled plastic *used* before it is discarded or incinerated?

@infobeautiful

not *all* information is beautiful 🤢

@infobeautiful That's higher than I suspected.
@larsmb You suspected correctly, the graph is seven years old and the production of plastic ahs increased since then, but we would have heard of it if the successful recycling rate would have gone up enough to make up the increased disposal rate -it would be spectacular and a great marketing point.

@infobeautiful

This is a great graphic!

I note that the data is from 2017, so almost a decade old. But I really don't expect there has been much change in those two numbers 30% and 1%.

If there were a much bigger increase in #plastic recycling, I expect we would have seen a lot more fanfare.

And the whole political notion of recycling as a placebo to appease whining #environmentalists... I think that's true. I suspect people think more recycling is going on than there really is. #cdnpoli

@infobeautiful same with every product. like carpets refrigerators, cars....
@infobeautiful used once 70%, still in use 30%. Where's "used twice" or "used several times"? Is that 0%?
@infobeautiful I guessed 2%. I'm an optimist!
@infobeautiful @1HommeAzerty It would be interesting to split each river into last year and the previous 19, because 20 years ago, we were not even talking about recycling plastics, apart from PET.